• Tassal has entered a Scheme Implementation Deed with Canadian aquaculture company Cooke to acquire 100 per cent of Tassal for $5.23 per share. The Tassal board unanimously recommends shareholders vote in favour for the scheme. (Image: Getty Images)
    Tassal has entered a Scheme Implementation Deed with Canadian aquaculture company Cooke to acquire 100 per cent of Tassal for $5.23 per share. The Tassal board unanimously recommends shareholders vote in favour for the scheme. (Image: Getty Images)
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Tassal has entered a Scheme Implementation Deed with Canadian aquaculture company Cooke to acquire 100 per cent of Tassal for $5.23 per share. The Tassal board unanimously recommends shareholders vote in favour for the scheme.

Cooke said it has already obtained Foreign Investment Review Board approval for the deal and it was not subject to financing or due diligence. 

The SID is a 12 per cent increase on its previous offer of $4.67 per share in June, and assumes no final dividend is declared or paid for FY22.

The scheme values Tassal at $1.1 billion with an enterprise value of $1.7 billion.

It is a 49 per cent premium on Tassal’s 22 June closing price of $3.52, the day before Cooke entity Amore Foods acquired a stake in the business. Cooke has a 10.5 per cent shareholding in Tassal.

On 28 June Tassal announced it had received an offer from Cooke at A$4.85 per share. It was the third offer from Clarke, building on $4.67 and $4.80.

Tassal chair James Fazzino said the announcement followed “a few months of constructive engagement” between the board and Cooke.

Tassal managing director and CEO Mark Ryan said the acquisition would enable Tassal to fast track its goal to be one of the world’s most transparent and sustainable protein producers.

The Cooke acquisition follows JBS’ acquisition of Huon Aquaculture last year for $425 million, with two of Australia’s biggest salmon producers now foreign owned. 

Tassal was advised by Goldman Sachs and Herbert Smith Freehills.

“Step-change” in cashflow for FY22

Tassal delivered a net profit after tax (NPAT) of $55.4 million in FY22, in what the company called a “step-change in cashflows”

Snapshot:

  • Operating EBITDA: $174.57m, up 25.3% on FY21
  • Net Profit After Tax (NPAT): $63.69m, up 31.9% on FY21
  • Operating cashflow: $139.03m, up 127.8% on FY21

The increased operating cashflow was driven by increasing prices, optimised sales mix, scaling success and the completion of a major infrastructure investment phase, the company said.

Tassal managing director and CEO Mark Ryan said, “Tassal delivered a step change in cash generation on FY22, with attractive domestic industry dynamics and strong global supply-demand fundamentals underpinning strong pricing outcomes in the salmon and prawn markets.”

Ryan said the company’s salmon production was now at scale and prices that started FY22 in recovery mode have ended at re-rated levels that have “more than offset inflation across the supply chain”.

“As Australia’s Blue AgTech leader, Tassal is focused on achieving the right balance between minimising our environmental impact and maximising our shareholder value, to ensure growth is optimised and sustainable.

“Tassal remains Australia’s number 1 ranked and top 15 globally ranked sustainable protein producer,” Ryan said.

The company said it has become Australia’s largest seaweed farmer, having grown around 3300 tonnes of seaweed and removed 22 tonnes of nitrogen from prawn ponds.

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